This site in Alizay, near Rouen in northern France, stores an incredible 23 examples of the Class 58 fleet – nearly half of the original 50 and more than half of the remaining 42. Visible in the left-hand line in April are Nos. 58006, 58049, 58004, 58011, 58040 and 58026, with No. 58033 at the head of the right-hand line.
The almost scandalous underuse of the Class 58 ‘Bone’ fleet is highlighted by the storage of nearly half the original total of 50 locos at just one location in northern France – and all left out in the open to rot.
JUST six of the original fifty Class 58s can currently be found in Britain – and one of those, No. 58008, is about to be broken up at Eastleigh as this issue goes to press (see page 80).
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Eight others have already been scrapped, but 23 of the remainder are now in store at Alizay, a town on the River Seine near Rouen, between Paris and the sea.
These locos were part of the exodus of locos then owned by EWS to be used in the construction of high-speed lines in France and Spain, work which also made use of Classes 37 and 56.
Read more in June’s edition of RE
